Fire-hit dairy farmer 'lucky'

A south-west Western Australian dairy farmer who faces costs of about $50,000 in damages from a bushfire, says it could have been much worse.

The fire began on Tuesday morning at Oates Farm in Yalyalup in the city of Busselton.

Farm owner Peter Oates says the the fire was accidently caused by an angle grinder.

Mr Oates says it was a scary situation.

"When the rolls were really going up I thought, hell, we could end up with some fire in some neighbouring paddocks but we were very fortunate the wind died down at night and it's all been very safe, we were lucky," he said.

"Oh well it's not a pleasant sight to see hay rolls burning, they weren't burning when I got there but it wasn't very long and they were alight and once the fire got into the hay rolls it was pretty much stand back and let it all go and mop up after that, that's what happened."